Has your writing entered the 21 century?

Once I advised an aspiring writer to “write like you speak.” Turns out, at the time, that wasn’t exactly a popular sentiment. But, I stood by that advice, telling everyone I coach to:

Read everything you write aloud.

If you stumble over your words, revise.

If your mind wanders, revise.

If you have to take a breath before your end punctuation… revise.

I’d also tell them, “Your first priority is to connect with your reader. Always write using your readers’ language. That means you may break a few grammar rules. It also means you must write in a conversational style, not necessarily literary.”

Again, I got into a bit of trouble over that one. But I still hold that sentiment.

Today I discovered my little deviation from grammar rules may have been more accurate than even I could have imagined.

Turns out, back in the day, I had to run all my websites through some software to make sure they were “mobile friendly.”

Today, many forward thinking website owners (and copywriters) recognize that many potential readers perform searches using voice technology. That means, they pop a button on their mobile phone, speak into the little microphone icon, and boom… search results.

This also means that if you own a website, write online content, or want to sell articles that will be read online, you’d be ahead of the game if you perform “voice search engine optimization” on everything you write.

This means you need to:

1. Use language that reflects oral speech.

2. Keep local dialects in mind as you write.

3. Have strong, relevant, conversational FAQs.

4. Conduct your own voice searches to see how your writing fares under these circumstances.

Writing conversationally takes more practice than I anticipated. But it’s well worth mastering that skill, especially as voice recognition continues to grow.

(Thanks to Bob Bly (bly.com) for pointing this out in his most recent newsletter!)

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